La Vergne mayor claims setup

Recent accusations that La Vergne Mayor Dennis Waldron used a city-funded cellphone to call various sex-related or escort-service phone numbers is just another effort to undermine his administration, he said Friday.

“It’s like the paparazzi,” Waldron said. “For over 10 months, people loyal to the previous administration have been stalking me. They’re accusing me of being places I haven’t been and being with people I have not been with.

When Waldron was asked by The Daily News Journal if he had made calls to sex-related or escort-service phone numbers on his city-issued cell phone,.his answer came quickly.

“I’m not going to say I didn’t,” said Waldron. “I’m not going to say I did.”

If he did, Waldron said, it was by error, or he was making a return call to an incoming one that he missed, not realizing what the number was.

Whether he did or didn’t make the calls — or someone else made the calls — on a city-issued phone, Waldron said he knows it will never happen again.

“I have decided for safety and the best interest of all to turn my city phone into the city and purchase my private phone. No one will have access to it,” he said.

The accusations came about recently in other media, relying on phone records provided by La Vergne after a public records request. The city also provided the same records to The DNJ, and calls made to the suspect numbers were either unanswered or disconnected.

“I’m not accusing any one person,” Waldron said about what he described as stalking. “But every time they do this, they put it on Facebook. Not one time have I talked negative about the previous administration on Facebook, but I can’t say vice versa.”

Waldron said he is going one step further to protect himself and the city.

At the meeting of the Board of Mayor and Alderman at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Waldron is going to recommend that all city vehicles be equipped with GPS devices, so they can be tracked. Some vehicles, such as police and fire, already are, but this would include others — even his.

“My truck will be the first one to get one,” said Waldron. “I’m tired of being accused of being places I have not been.”

According to City Administrator Bruce Richardson, Waldron did not break any laws or even rules.

“The city’s employment policy allows for use of city cellphones for personal calls under certain circumstances. There is no policy in effect prohibiting use of city cellphones for personal calls by the city’s elected officials” Richardson said in an official statement. “Whether there needs to be such a policy going forward is up to the city’s board of mayor and aldermen.”

Waldron, who is single, said the publicity has been an embarrassment to him, his girlfriend and his family.

“I’ve got parents who are elderly and they don’t deserve this. There’s a record of people trying to discredit me. I’m going to go on the offensive, not just to protect me, but to protect every city employee,” Waldron said. “They don’t care about the citizens of La Vergne, they just want to embarrass me, but they don’t realize that embarrasses the whole city.

"The city of La Vergne deserves better than that and I’m going to do all I can to stop it.”

You can reach Mary at 615-278-5109. You can follow her on Twitter @MaryReevesDNJ.